Entertainment

Kickstarter Helps Toad the Wet Sprocket With First Album in 16 Years

In an era where bands from the 1990s can ride a wave of nostalgia to a successful run as a touring band, Toad the Wet Sprocket is going its own way.

After disbanding in 1998, the California quartet reunited throughout the 2000s for one-off shows and short tours. But Toad recently returned to the studio as a full-time band — rather than resting complacently on 20-year-old hits — after launching a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter in June to make it happen.

Setting out to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter, the band brought in more than $264,000 in 60 days. Toad has been on the road for several months this year, and the album is now available to stream and buy. Mashable spoke to lead singer Glen Phillips about the Kickstarter campaign and Toad's place in music today, 27 years after forming.

Mashable: How did you decide to do Kickstarter?

Phillips: [Kickstarter] seemed like the best option for us. We knew we had an audience that had been waiting for us for a long time to make a record and we felt like we had made the record that wouldn't disappoint them. As we were looking at a traditional record deal, it would have probably made things needlessly complicated from the very beginning. This was a great way of being able to cover the cost of producing the album while also creating a story with the people who really cared about it. It's kind of a win-win situation. They get vinyl or special packages that other people don't get. More songs, EPs ... We end up owning a record with no debt and a little left over for promoting it. Everybody's happy.

Did you consider a traditional label approach?

You really don't get signed off the street these days unless you're 20 years old and look like you could tear it up on the television. There are probably labels that we could've talked to, but their business model is really different these days. Everybody is trying to figure out how the music business works. The labels' income stream used to be based on selling these physical items and the idea that everybody who bought a record, if they liked it, would buy two copies. The CD and the cassette or the cassette and the LP.

So through the '80s and the early '90s [labels] were flushed with cash. They could invest in music and they could afford to lose money on 90% of the acts they signed. In the current model, if one out of every 20 or 50 people who listens to a record actually buys it, then your business model has to change. If you look at a lot of the success stories right now, those records were developed independently and the labels came in later in the process. Their A&R guys aren't looking for the band that's never played a live show, they're looking for the band that's already selling 50,000 records on their own on the road, or the band that already has 10 million hits on YouTube. In that world, our job is the create our own story and our own album, and frankly if we can reach 10% of the people who used to call themselves Toad fans and we can get those people directly involved with us and provide them with music they like, then we have a career.

Do you think the changing business model is discouraging to new artists?

I don't think it's discouraging at all. It's very encouraging. It means we can give up on the old rock 'n' roll dream that served so many people so badly. This idea that you're going to somehow just get discovered and you'll be magically transformed into a star. Everybody knows some guy in his 50s who's still waiting for that call. Now people understand that it takes a ton of work, even if that work is very playful. I think of something like Pomplamoose, they're giddy with play. But they also kept making video after video, song after song.

Now bands have to work harder. I think the freedom in music right now is wonderful, it's exceptional. People are making brilliant records and those records are getting heard. Maybe artists aren't making the killing they used to make. More bands are making a living not necessarily having to take the big major label risk. They only go to a major label when it's good business for everybody. That's a great way for the major labels to work. The labels are these big, huge marketing monsters. They're great at what they do. But to think that all music has to fit through that filter is insane. There are a lot of other ways to go about it. Maybe someday we'll have enough success that that model will work for us. But we're actually better off that we don't have to try to fit into that world. It's a wonderful era.

How do services like Spotify fit into your equation?

There's a lot of talk over Spotify and how they pay out to artists, and I would rather people bought my album instead of streaming it over and over. But there's also the fact that when you get people complaining about how many streams you need on Spotify in order to earn publishing money, they're comparing it to terrestrial radio. But the fact is that if I get like 400 spins on a AAA station, a smaller adult alternative station — 500 spins on those is roughly 1.5 to 2 million people who are likely listeners. If I get 500 plays on Spotify, 500 people have heard that song. So to expect there to be some equity in the pay rate is ludicrous.

There is a way in which Spotify and Pandora may devalue music to the consumer. They make consumers really feel like music is still free and that somehow artists make a living anyway. If I had the luxury of being able to pull my music off Spotify, I might. It would be better business. No one is going to get rich off of Pandora or Spotify, but more people are going to hear my music. And since I'm not Radiohead and I need more people to hear my music, I'm really glad Spotify exists.

Do you pay for a streaming service yourself?

Actually yes, Spotify. It's amazing to be able to think of any song and look it up and hear it. And frankly, it's my daughter who uses it. I got her a subscription. I have an 11-year-old, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old and they listen to music on the Internet. They used to do it all on Youtube, they went to Pandora for a while and now it's all about Spotify. They go to concerts constantly. They are the kids who are supporting the bands live, buying the T-shirts. But I also noticed they're not buying the CDs. I look at them as my own little test group of how kids are consuming music these days. It matters to them, but they grew up in an era where at least with Spotify there's some subscription. There are previous options that they found and used gave nothing to the artist. I'd rather have a tiny piece of something than 100% of nothing.

Is Toad the Wet Sprocket a '90s nostalgia band?

I am the beneficiary of '90s nostalgia so I will encourage as much of it as possible. There's some vindication in all of it. Geeks didn't run the world when I was growing up. And in current popular culture, it's not a terrible thing to be a geek. I feel like the '90s is the last generation that people had to fight for their geekdom and suffer for it. It's a really interesting type of nostalgia. It's about the stuff you would get your ass kicked all the time.

If I'm going to be cynical about it, there was a really great article that Patton Oswalt wrote awhile ago where he was talking about levels of investment into nerddom. We were a band that took our name from an obscure Monty Python skit off of an album. We were into musical theater before Glee. We met in Oklahoma! [the musical]. My dad was a physicist, my mom was a chemist, he would teach basic computer programming courses in our living room when I was a kid and then we would all sit around and watch The Prisoner together. There's a certain vindication in that nerdy part.

When Toad came out there were a bunch of people who cared about what we did who weren't the cool kids or the edgy kids. They were biology majors. For all the trouble we got into when we came out in the press, because the press was so edgy and cool and we were just not. We had this really blessed, lucky career, but at the time, we were also the tagline to a lot of jokes. For me what's vindicating is that we're not the tagline to the joke anymore. Even when we're on the 5 worst band names of all time list, they'll give credit for the fact that it was a fucking joke! Instead of just being a bad band name. I like it. I feel like there's vindication in there for us. Doing this Kickstarter campaign was like, you know what? People still give a shit about us! They don't give a shit about a lot of the cool bands from the '90s. I feel really proud of what we did, and I'm glad that we're finally getting some credit for it.

If digital music has done one thing for us, it's made us all omnivores. It used to be that you had to invest in your genre. You could afford to buy a magazine, and then you'd buy the albums that that magazine likes the best, and you'd learn to love them. You'd know the story of the band before you bought it. You'd always have the story first and then the music, unless you were listening to pop radio. I like that they get the music first. I feel like when we came out, we didn't have a good story so people didn't hear the music. That's a good way for it to go. Get the story last, get the music first. Musicians have more often than not suffered for the sins of others.

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